TB Free England

Bovine TB (bTB) devastates thousands of farming family businesses every year and tens of thousands of cattle are culled annually in England because of it. Find out more about bTB, its impact, and why we must use all available options to make England TB free.

Article investigates Irish experience

While bovine TB has been spreading relentlessly across England, precisely the opposite has been happening across the Irish Sea.

Farmers Guardian recently took a look at the Irish government’s badger cull policy, which has been in place in its current form since 2004, and its contribution to a decline in cattle testing positive for bTB from 40,000 in 2000 to 18,500 last year.

A spokesman for the Irish Department of Agriculture told the publication: “While we accept it is difficult to attribute trends to a single factor, we believe much of the improvement in the TB situation is due the badger removal programme which was significantly enhanced in 2004.”